Neka Art Museum, Ubud, Bali

[BluErf]

Originally Posted by A. G. Maisey

In my experience Balinese people and Javanese people are much given to personal display. Sometimes that display is not particularly obvious, but where it is not obvious, it is usually calculated to make an impression. Our niece married into one of the wealthiest families in Indonesia. They staged a couple of wedding receptions, and we attended the one in Sydney. The groom's parents used understatement to display their wealth:- the father was dressed in a dusty off the rack, badly fitting suit and wore a black plastic watch; the mother wore a very simple outfit that she had had made in Paris, she only wore one piece of jewellery:- a heavy gold chain supporting a single diamond as big as a pigeon's egg.

Understatement I can understand, but a bad-fitting suit on the son's wedding day ... why???